Open Atelier at Plečnik House – The Project in Full Swing
Activities within the EU project Open Atelier (Creative Europe) are in full swing at Plečnik House, MGML. In 2025, we are connecting the project with a special occasion – the 10th anniversary of the museum’s reopening after its thorough renovation – and using it as an opportunity to develop a layered upgrade of the permanent exhibition at Plečnik House. The project brings together the creative energy of students, the expertise of mentors, and the legacy of one of Slovenia’s most important architects.
The Open Atelier project has offered Plečnik House a chance to develop two new participatory, audience-oriented museum experiences. The first experience was last year’s Plečnik’s Ljubljana Hackathon, where we invited young creatives to tackle the challenge of enriching a part of the permanent exhibition at Plečnik House through interactive design.
The second experience, now underway, will lead to a small but content-rich renovation of the exhibition room Plečnik’s Ljubljana. The update is designed as a thoughtful addition to the existing display, enriched with contemporary content. New exhibition panels will highlight Plečnik’s churches of St. Michael in the Marshes and St. Francis of Assisi in Šiška, deepen the interpretation of Plečnik’s urban design axes, and spotlight the UNESCO inscription of Plečnik’s Ljubljana as one of its most significant recent recognitions.
A key contribution to the renovation comes from the winning student team from the Hackathon, who were challenged at the start of this year to adapt their original concept to fit the specific spatial and technical context of the exhibition. Together, we are developing a new interpretive element made of modular components. This is a creative and research-based process that combines innovative materials and thoughtful design, supported by mentors and external experts.
The Open Atelier project is the result of a wide collaboration involving students, architects, designers, researchers, and representatives from partner institutions. Its goal is clear: to create a contemporary, layered, and open exhibition space that presents Plečnik’s heritage in a fresh and inclusive way.
About the EU project
Open Atelier − building new innovative formats for active audience participation and interaction with cultural heritage within European House Museums
Open Atelier is an interdisciplinary network, funded by European Union’s Creative Europe programme, which aims at developing operative blueprints for new audience-centred participatory museum experiences. The cross-sectoral network is composed of four European House Museums (Plecnik House under the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana from Slovenia, Millesgården Museum from Sweden, Einar Jónsson Sculpture Museum from Iceland and Art Museums of Skagen from Denmark), one creative performance organisation (AMAT from Italy) and two universities (Politecnico di Milano from Italy and Aalborg University from Denmark). Through a workshop-based approach built on co-creative processes, Open Atelier will design, test and evaluate innovative strategies and tools to engage audiences in the way cultural heritage is interpreted, presented and used in contemporary scenarios.